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ORATION 

OF 

HENRY ARMITT BROWN, 

it 

ON THE 

ONE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY 




CARPENTERS' HALL. 



MEETING OF CONGRESS IN CARPENTERS' HALL, 



AND PROCEEDINGS TN CONNECTION THEREWITH. 



7 



PRINTED BY ORDER OF 

THE CARPENTERS' COMPANY OF THE CITY AND 
COUNTY OF PHILADELPHIA, 

1874. 



3$& 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by The Carpenters' Company 
of the City and County of Philadelphia, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at 
Washington. 



Westcott & Thomson, . Taylor & Smith, 

Slereolypers and Electrolypers, Phtta, Printers, FMla, 



BEAUTIFUL REMINISCENCE 

OF THE 

First Congress in Philadelphia. 

FROM THE PEN OF THE VENERABLE JOHN ADAMS. 



When the Congress met, Mr. dishing- made a 
motion that it should be opened with prayer. It was 
opposed by Mr. Jay of New York, and Mr. Rutledge 
of South Carolina, because we were so divided in 
religious sentiments — some Episcopalians, some Qua- 
kers, some Anabaptists, some Presbyterians, and some 
Congregationalists — that we could not join in the 
same act of worship. Mr. Samuel Adams arose and 
said " that he was no bigot, and could hear a prayer 
from any gentleman of piety and virtue, who was at the 
same time a friend to his country. He was a stranger 
in Philadelphia, but had heard that Mr. Duche (Duchay 
they pronounced it) deserved that character, and 
therefore he moved that Mr. Duche, an Episcopalian 
clergyman, might be desired to read prayers to Con- 
gress to-morrow morning." The motion was seconded, 
and passed in the affirmative. Mr. Randolph, our 
President, waited on Mr. D., and received for 
answer that if his health would permit he certainly 
would. Accordingly, next morning he appeared with 
his clerk and in his pontificals, and read several 
prayers in the established form, and then read the 
Psalter for the seventh day of September, which was 
the thirty-fifth Psalm. You must remember that this 
was the next morning after we had heard of the horri- 



4 FIRST CONGRESS /X PHILADELPHIA. 

ble cannonade of Boston. It seemed as if heaven 
had ordained that Psalm to be read on that morning. 

"After this, Mr. Duche, unexpectedly to everybody, 
struck out into extemporary prayer, which filled the 
bosom of every man present. I must confess I never 
heard a better prayer, or one so well pronounced. 
Episcopalian as he is, Dr. Cooper himself never 
prayed with such fervor, such ardor, such correctness 
and pathos, and in language so elegant and sublime, 
for America, for Congress, for the Province of the 
Massachusetts Bay, especially the town of Boston. It 
had excellent effect upon everybody here. I must beg 
of you to read the Psalm. If there is any faith in the 
sortes Virgiliance, or Homcricce, or especially the sortes 
Bibliccc, it would have been thought providential." 

Here was a scene worthy of the painter's art. It 
was in Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia — a building 
which still survives — that the devoted individuals met 
to whom this service was read. 

Washington was kneeling there, and Henry, and 
Randolph, and Rutledge, and Lee, and Jay, and by 
their side there stood, bowed in reverence, the Puritan 
patriots of New England, who at that moment had 
reason to believe that an armed soldiery was wasting 
their humble households. It was believed that Boston 
had been bombarded and destroyed. They prayed 
fervently " for America, for the Congress, for the Prov- 
ince of Massachusetts Bay, and especially for the 
town of Boston," and who can realize the emotions 
with which they turned imploringly to heaven for 
divine interposition and aid ? " It was enough," says 
Mr. Adams, " to melt a heart of stone. I saw the tears 
gush into the eyes of the old, grave, pacific Quakers 
of Philadelphia." 



CARPENTERS' HALL. 



At a meeting of " The Carpenters' Company of 
the City and County of Philadelphia," held 21st of 

July. 1873, 

Resolved, That Walter Allison, D. Henry Flukwir 
and Richard K. Betts be appointed a committee to 
memorialize Congress to celebrate the Centennial 
Meeting of the First Congress in this Hall on Sep- 
tember 5, 1874. 

October 20, 1874, the Committee presented the 
draft of a Memorial, which was read and ordered to 
be transcribed, signed by the President and Secretary, 
the seal of the Company attached, and the Committee 
directed to present a copy to the President of the 
United States and to both Houses of Congress. 



■&* 



MEMORIAL. 
To the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States, in Congress assembled: 
We, your memorialists, respectfully represent, that, 
whilst we recognize the fact that our nation's freedom 
was declared in Independence Hall, yet this I lall, 
where were heard the deliberate tones of a Hancock, 
the defiant voice of a Henry, and the persuasive elo- 
quence of an Adams in the First American Congress 



6 ORATION OF HENRY ARM ITT BROWN 

■ — than whom a body of greater men never assembled 
together or crowned a nation's annals — and who 
bowed here in reverence as the first prayer was 
uttered in that Congress, deliberately avowing that to 
the oppressive acts of the mother-country Americans 
never can submit, and the determination to part with 
their liberties only with their lives, so patriotically and 
faithfully adhered to, is held sacred by us as the 
Nation's birth-place, and must be dear to every patri-. 
otic heart ; and whereas, The near approach of the 
one hundredth anniversary of that memorable event 
renders it befitting that we, the successors of those 
who freely offered this Hall when even our time- 
honored State-House was closed against them, should 
commemorate the nation's advent by our official action ; 
Therefore be it Resolved, That Congress be invited 
to assemble in this Hall on -the fifth day of the ninth 
month next (1874), the hundredth anniversary of the 
meeting of the First American Congress, and that 
such ceremonies take place as they in their wisdom 
may think best suited to that memorable occasion. 

Samuel Ruin, President. 
Wm. T. Forsythe, Secretary. 

Walter Allison, 

D. Henry Flukwir, >- Committee. 

Richard K. Beits, 

July 20, 1874, the Committee reported that two of 
their number, Walter Allison and Richard K. Betts, 
proceeded to Washington and presented the Memorial 
to the President and to Congress as directed. 



CARPENTERS' HALL. 7 

Walter xAllison offered the following : 

Whereas, The Carpenters' Company of the City 
and County of Philadelphia did present a Memorial to 
the Congress of the United States, inviting that body 
to celebrate the one-hundredth anniversary of the 
meeting of Congress in this Hall on the 5th day of 
September, 1874, and 

Whereas, The Congress of the United States have 
not deemed it expedient to celebrate that event as a 
national one ; therefore, be it 

Resolved, That in order to celebrate so important 
an event in our nation's history, a committee of three 
be appointed, whose duty it shall be to have an oration 
delivered in this hall, and any other ceremonies appro- 
priate to the occasion ;. When, on motion, the pre- 
amble and resolution were unanimously adopted, and 
the following committee appointed: 

John M. Ogden, 
Walter Allison, 
Richard K. Beits. 

The Committee extended a timely and cordial invi- 
tation to the President of the United States and his 
Cabinet, the Vice-President, and to both Houses of 
Congress, the Chief-Justice, the Governors of the 
States, and other distinguished officials and private 
citizens. 

Amongst those present were 
Hon. Henry Wilson, Vice-President, U. S., 
" Jos. R. Hawley, M. C. and President of U. S. 
Centennial Commission, 



8 ORATION OF HENRY ARM ITT BROWN. 

Hon. Wm. D. Kelley, M. C, 
Leonard Myers, " 
Saml. J. Randall, " 
Charles O'Neill, " 
Eli K. Price, 
James J. Barclay, 
Daniel M. Fox, 
Joseph Allison, 
Wm. S. Peirce, 
Jas. Lynd, 

Joseph R. Chandler, Ex-Minister to Italy, 
James H. Campbell, Ex-Minister to Sweden, 
Henry C. Carey, 
Alex. McClure, 
Gen. Robert Patterson, 
Maj. John O. James, 
Capt. George A. Smith, 
Hon. Thomas Cochran, J Centennial 
" John Wanamaker, j Board of Finance, 
" Fredk. Fraley, Secretary Centennial Board of 
Finance, 
J. L. Atlee, Lancaster, 
Leonard H. Davis, Esq., New Jersey. 
The assemblage was then called to order by. John 
M. Ogden, chairman of the Committee of Arrange- 
ments. He nominated for President John Welsh, Esq. 
On motion of Mr. Walter Allison, Charles S. Ogden, 
Esq., was then chosen Secretary. 

Rev. Dr. Thomas F. Davies, Rector of St. Peter's 
Church, then delivered the following 



CARPENTERS' HALL. 



PRAYER. 



O God, who art the blessed and only Potentate, the 
King of kings and Lord of lords, the Almighty Ruler 
of Nations, who as at this time didst inspire and direct 
the hearts of our fathers to lay the perpetual founda- 
tions of peace, liberty and safety, we adore and mag- 
nify Thy glorious name for all the great things which 
Thou hast done for us. The Lord our God be with 
us as He was with our fathers ; let Him not leave us 
nor forsake us. We render Thee thanks for the 
goodly heritage which Thou hast given us ; for the 
civil and religious privileges which we enjoy, and for 
the multiplied manifestations of Thy favor. Grant 
that we may show forth our thankfulness for these 
Thy mercies, by living in reverence of Thy Almighty 
power and dominion, in humble reliance on Thy good- 
ness, and in holy obedience to Thy laws. Preserve, 
we beseech Thee, to our country the blessings of 
peace, and secure them to all the people of the earth. 
We implore Thy blessing on all in authority over us, 
that they may have grace and wisdom so to discharge 
their duties as most effectually to promote Thy glory, 
the interests of true religion and virtue, and the peace, 
good order and welfare of our nation. Shed the quick- 
ening influences of Thy Holy Spirit on all the peo- 
ple of this land. Save us from the guilt of abusing 
our blessings, lest we provoke Thee in just judgment 
to visit our offences with a rod and our sins with 
scourges. And while Thy unmerited goodness, O 
God of all salvation, leads us to repentance, may we 



IO ORATION OF HENRY ARMITT DROWN. 

offer ourselves, our souls and bodies, a living sacrifice 
to Thee, who hast preserved and redeemed us, through 
Jesus Christ our Lord, who hath taught us to pray 
unto thee, O Almighty Father, in His prevailing name 
and words. [The reverend gentleman then closed 
with the Lord's Prayer and Benediction.] 

The Secretary, addressing the Chairman, said that 
he had been requested by Messrs. Wallace & Keller 
to present to him in their behalf the gavel which he 
then handed to him, accompanied with authenticated 
evidences that it was made from wood used in the 
construction of Independence Hall, with the assurance 
that it gave to him great pleasure to be the medium 
of this presentation. The Chairman, on receiving 
it, thanked the Secretary, and begged him to ex- 
press to Messrs. Wallace & Keller his grateful acknow- 
ledgment for so valuable a token of their kindness, for 
the presentation of which they had chosen so fitting a 
moment as this — the centennial of the first meeting 
of that Congress whose great work had culminated on 
the 4$i of July, 1776, in the Declaration of Independ- 
ence in Independence Hall. Having been born under 
the shadow of the spire of that venerable building, 
and having often in his cradle been lulled to sleep by 
the sound of that bell which proclaimed liberty through- 
out the land, he felt that he could, on looking back 
through a life now well advanced in years, sfi.y that he 
had ever been true to the principles of which they 
were the symbols ; and should it be in the future — 
which God forbid ! — that he should ever be tempted 
to waver in his allegiance to them, he trusted that this 



CARPENTERS' HALL. II 

relic (the gavel which he then uplifted), connected so 
closely with the scenes among which and by which our 
nation was brought into being, would so strengthen 
him as to keep him true both to his country and to 
himself. 

The Secretary then read: 

Philadelphia, September 4, 1874. 
To the President and Managers of the Carpenters' 
Company of PhiladclpJiia. 

Gentlemen : A few years since I became possessed 
of the original portrait, painted by C. W. Peale, of 
the Hon. Peyton Randolph, the first President of the 
First Continental Congress. I purchased it, intending 
that it should be preserved for our city and country 
on the occasion of the Celebration of the Centennial 
of the Declaration of Independence. To-morrow will 
be the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Meeting 
of the first Congress of the people of the original 
States, over which Mr. Randolph so ably presided. 

I observe that your Company propose to com- 
memorate the Centennial of the first Meeting of the 
First Continental Congress with appropriate ceremo- 
nies, and I can conceive of no memento that will be 
more suggestive of the great events that have fol- 
lowed the formation of that Congress, than the orig- 
inal portrait of the distinguished patriot and statesman 
who presided over their deliberations. 

Being in full sympathy with the purposes of your 
Company and the spirit of your proposed celebration, 
I take pleasure in presenting to you the portrait, to be 



12 ORATION OF HENRY ARM ITT BROWN. 

placed among the archives of your Company. With 
sentiments of respect, I am 

Very truly yours, 

E. C. Knight. 

Also the following note from Mr. John A. McAllis- 
ter: 

" It gives me great pleasure to loan to the ' Carpen- 
ters' Society,' for its ' Centennial,' a portrait of the 
Rev. Jacob Duche, D. D., Chaplain to the ' Conti- 
nental Congress.' This portrait was drawn in chalk 
by the doctor's brother-in-law, Francis Hopkinson 
(one of the signers), about the year 1770. The late 
Mrs. Hall, to whom this portrait belonged before it 
came into my possession, told me that she was a 
friend and frequent visitor of Parson Duche, and that 
she considered this the best likeness she had ever 
seen." 

Colonel Frank M. Etting, of the Museum depart- 
ment, Independence Hall, presented a fac-si7nile of 
the signatures of Congress of 1774 to the first con- 
vention of Union of the Colonies for presentation. 
The signatures were made in the Carpenters' Hall by 
every delegate then representing the twelve United 
Colonies. 

Mr. Welsh, President of the meeting, then said: 

Gentlemen : Official engagements having prevented 
his Excellency, the Governor of the Commonwealth, 
from presiding on this interesting occasion, that duty 
has been assigned to me. The honor thus conferred 
is most grateful to me. The Carpenters' Company of 



CARPENTERS' HALL. \$ 

the City and County of Philadelphia has sustained a 
most useful and a most enviable position among the 
numerous associations which form an essential part of 
the strength of our great and growing city. Its origin 
dates as far back as 1724, only forty-two years after 
William Penn first landed on the shore of the river 
Delaware. Composed of men engaged in a most 
useful occupation ; designed to cultivate and uphold 
among themselves the highest standard of excellence 
in their art and in their personal characters ; em- 
bracing in their purpose that most excellent gift of 
charity which feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, and 
makes at one the differences which rise among men, 
— this venerable Company stands to-day, as it has 
stood through one hundred and fifty years, in un- 
diminished vigor, ever growing in strength and useful- 
ness with its increasing years. Outside of their 
organization most, if not all, of its members hold a 
most important relation to our community. Beyond 
the practical part they take in the pursuit of their 
calling, there are no classes of men amongst us who 
labor more earnestly for the public good. Several of 
those here to-day enjoy the sincerest respect and 
regard of their fellow-citizens because of their un- 
selfish devotion in the relief of human suffering and 
to the elevation of the degraded among their fellow- 
men. Many of its members have, by their judicious 
enterprise, contributed largely to the material inter- 
ests of our city, and to their intelligence as a craft we 
owe the superiority which the private dwellings of 
Philadelphia possess in convenience and comfort, in 



H ORATION OF HENRY ARMITT BR OWN. 

addition to their substantial qualities, over those of 
most other cities. Of their part in the improvement 
in our styles of architecture honorable mention should 
be made, for the purpose of obtaining instruction in 
the science of architecture is one of the objects named 
in their act of incorporation ; and in the main our 
architects are but evolutions from carpenters who have 
worked at the bench. The practical is the best foun- 
dation on which to rest an aesthetic superstructure. 
Nor have the men who, in the long line of succession, 
have composed this company ever lacked sympathy 
with the advancing sentiment of the country. In 
patriotic feeling their hearts have always beat in uni- 
son with the most ardent advocates of liberty. The 
occasion of our meeting to-day bears the strongest 
possible testimony on that point. It was in this vener- 
able Hall — venerable alike for its age and its honors 
— that the First Congress assembled. Here, where 
we now are, that memorable meeting took place, on 
this clay one hundred years ago. Well might we 
pause and try to recall that scene, but the attempt to 
do it is not for me. One mightier far than I am for 
such a purpose will follow me, and the sketch, with all 
its circumstances, the actors in it and its consequences, 
shall be given you by his graphic pencil. Let me, 
however, ask of you to look for a single moment 
through the vista of the many intervening years upon 
the dark background which closes it — dark with the 
clouds of impending perils, of doubts and fears, of sac- 
rifices and of sufferings, with here and there upon 
these clouds slight fissures of gilded light, foreshadow- 



V/y-.A'.V' HALL. t'5 

ing feebly the lofty aims and firm resolves of our fore- 
fathers, which, like the faint gleams of hope and 
smouldering sparks of future glory nourished within 
their bosoms, led them forward ; and tell me whether, 
in bringing back your vision to the present, the grand- 
eur of our possessions does not startle you with 
alarm at your own insensibility as to their extent, anil 
with the weight of the responsibility resting on you 
for, the proper use of the material wealth and the civil 
and religious privileges in which our country literally 
revels — the fruits of the seed planted under such 
bitter adversity ? 

Is not this a thought worthy of our consideration? 
Is it not the thought which for years past has been 
making itself a home in the hearts of many of our 
people, taking them back into the past, and filling 
them with apprehension for the future, lest, losing 
sight of the true elements of our strength, our pros- 
perity should become our weakness? This may well 
cause us to look toward 1876 with longings for a re- 
union, that we may study anew the principles of our 
nstitutions, and honor those who established them 
here on the very spot rendered classic by the scenes 
incident to the mighty transformation wrought in 1776, 
by which thirteen colonies, subject to the kingdom of 
Great Britain and Ireland, became an independent 
nation, based on the principle of self-government, 
known ever since as " the United States of America," 
and now respected as one among the great powers of 
the earth. It is that longing hope, common, as I be- 
lieve, to every one who claims our flag as his pro-ted 



t6 ORATION OF HENRY ARMlTT BROWN 

tion, which has been crystallized into a reality by Con- 
gress in the act of 3d March, 1871. That act created 
a commission, drawn from every State and Territory, 
to make suitable provision for a Centennial Celebra- 
tion in the city of Philadelphia in 1876, one of the 
principal features of which shall be an International 
Exhibition of the arts and manufactures of other na- 
tions, in contrast with those of our own production ; 
and beyond this, by every suitable means, to recall the 
events and the actors in those interesting scenes which 
radiate from that great central light — the Declaration 
of Independence, the memories of which have become 
too faint in the minds of the great mass of our peo- 
ple. When we look with pride on the progress we 
have made in a century; when we count the many 
millions which now people our great cities and broad 
plains ; bring in array the fields covered with cotton 
and the golden grain ; hear the busy sound of ma- 
chinery reverberating from hill to valley, mingling with 
the bleating and lowing of flocks and herds innumer- 
able ; descend beneath the surface, where thousands 
toil for the rich rewards of mineral wealth ; look upon 
the trains traversing seventy thousand miles of rail- 
road within our borders, extending from ocean to 
ocean, and making almost every hamlet in the land 
accessible ; mark on our great rivers and canals ves- 
sels of every form in incessant motion ; and see our 
flag unfurled on every sea and in every harbor, — it is 
wise that we should recall the events in which our 
prosperity took its rise, study the principles on which 
it was based, dwell on the simplicity of the lives and 



CARPENTERS' HALL. 1 7 

the purity and strength of the men who brought about 
these great results, and make ourselves familiar with 
them all, that if, because of our departure from their 
principles or their examples, we are the weaker for it, 
and are unable to recover ourselves, we may at least 
teach them to our children, and thus, through them, 
renew the foundation which can alone support so 
grand a superstructure. 

One of the first fruits of this approaching Centen- 
nial is now at hand. This same Carpenters' Company, 
which in 1774 opened its hall to the Continental Con- 
gress, animated by the same spirit as it was moved by 
then, and in view of the celebration to be held in 1876, 
has assembled here to-day to revive in the memory of 
its countrymen a knowledge of the men who met in 
this Hall on the 5th of September, 1774, one hundred 
years ago. God grant that in this noble effort they 
may be successful ! 

Gentlemen, I have now the pleasure to introduce to 
you Henry Armitt Brown, Esq., who will address you 
in furtherance of this patriotic purpose. 

Henry Armitt Brown then came forward and read 
a letter, which he had just received, from the Hon. 
Wm. S. Stokley, Mayor of Philadelphia, desiring him, 
as Orator of the Day, to extend an invitation, in His 
Honor's name, to the distinguished company present, 
to visit Independence Hall and the National Museum 
after the exercises in Carpenters' Hall. Having dis- 
charged, in a few words, the pleasant duty thus con- 
fided to him, he continued as follows. 



ORATION 

OF 

HENRY ARM ITT BROWN 



We have come here to-day in obedience to that 
natural impulse which bids a people do honor to its 
past. We have assembled to commemorate a great 
event — one of the most famous in our history. In the 
midst of prosperity and profound peace ; in the pres- 
ence of the honorable and honored Vice-President of 
the United States, of the chosen rulers of the people, 
of the members of the present and other Congresses — 
the successors of the statesmen of 1774 — of the rep- 
resentatives of the learned professions, and of every 
department of human enterprise and industry and 
skill, we have gathered beneath this roof to celebrate, 
with reverent and appropriate services, the one hun- 
dredth anniversary of the meeting of the First Con- 
tinental Congress. 

It is a great privilege to be here, and we have to 
thank the Carpenters' Company for it. The Carpen- 
ters' Company of Philadelphia has always been a pa- 
triotic body. In the months which preceded the Rev- 
olution it freely offered its hall for the meetings of the 
people ; and besides the high honor of having enter- 
tained the Congress of 1774, it can point to its having 
sheltered the Committees of Safety and the Provincial 



IS 



CARPENTERS' HALL. 1 9 

Committee for a long time beneath this roof. The 
Carpenters' Company of Philadelphia is a very ancient 
body. It came into existence when George the First 
was king, when Benjamin Franklin was. a printer's lad, 
and Samuel Johnson was a boy at school. It was 
founded fifty years before an American Congress met, 
and it is now half as old again as American independ- 
ence. And more than this, it is a very honorable body. 
Its members have been counted among our best cit- 
izens for industry and character. Both this hall, in 
which the nation may be said to have been born, and 
that other, where in 1776 its articles of apprentice- 
ship were cancelled, are the monuments of its earlier 
skill, and there are few houses in this City of Homes 
in which its members have not had a hand. And, 
after all, how fitting does it seem that the hall of the 
Carpenters' Company should have been the scene of 
that event which we have assembled to commemorate ! 
The men of the First Congress were architects them- 
selves ; the master-builders of a Republic founded on 
the equality of man — the highest types of which, in 
the two struggles through which it has had to pass, 
have been Benjamin Franklin, the mechanic, and the 
farmer's lad whose name was Abraham Lincoln. They 
represented among themselves every rank of life — the 
lawyer, the merchant, the farmer, the mechanic — and 
they did more to dignify Labor and advance the cause 
of Humanity in the seven weeks during which they 
sat in this place than all the parliaments of the world 
have done in twice as many centuries. If there be 
anything good, if there be anything noble, if there be 



■20 ORATION OF HENRY A R MITT BROWN. 

anything precious in the American Revolution, it is 
just this — that it secured for every man an equal 
chance. Far wiser than those who have attempted a 
similar work beneath other skies, the men who achieved 
that Revolution attacked no vested rights, set up no 
false notions of equality, nor the oppression of the 
many for the tyranny of the few, nor did they break 
the chain that bound them to an honorable past. They 
sought rather to make Virtue and Intelligence the test 
of manhood — to strike down Prerogative and Privilege 
and open the gates of happiness to all alike. And as 
1 contemplate their glorious struggle at this distance 
of time, and think of the national life which it has 
blessed us with — a century of which is surely a great 
achievement for any people* — I cannot but think it to 
have been a happy omen that it was inaugurated here. 
It is impossible, in the time which I can allow myself, 
to attempt a description of the causes of the Revolu- 

* The historian Freeman, writing in 1862, says [Hist, of Fed. C,o-,<t., vol. i., 
p. 112): "At all events, the American Union has actually secured, for what is 
really a long period of time, a greater amount of combined peace and freedom 
than was ever before enjoyed by so large a portion of the earth's surface. There 
have been, and still are, vaster despotic empires, but never before has so large 
an inhabited territory remained for more than seventy years in the enjoyment at 
once of internal freedom and of exemption from the scourge of internal war." 

Prof Hoppin of Yale College tells me of a conversation he had some years 
ago . th Prof. Karl von Raumer of Berlin : " I asked him what was his opinion 
as if. the perpetuity of republican institutions. He said: Under certain con- 
ditions fulfilled, they would be more permanent than any other form. ' But,' said 
he, starting up from his chair with great energy, ' if they should fail, fifty years of 
American freedom would be worth a thousand years of Siberian despotism !' " 

A similar thought is expressed by Freeman in page 52 of the volume above 
quoted : " The one century of Athenian greatness, from the expulsion of the 
Thirty Tyrants to the defeat of Aigospotamos, is worth millenniums of the life 
of Egypt or Assyria." 



CARPENTERS' HALL. 2\ 

tion. The duty which I have to discharge is sufficiently 
difficult. I shall tax your patience, at any rate, I fear, 
(for the trial is rather how little than how much to say). 
but the story must needs be long, and the occasion 
seems one of historic dignity. 

It was only a month ago that the inhabitants of a 
little island in the northern corner of the Atlantic 
Ocean met on their Law Mount and celebrated, with 
song and saga, their one thousandth anniversary. 
That hardy race, which counts among its achievements 
the first discovery of this continent, has witnessed 
many memorable and strange events. Locked up in 
snow and ice, protected by the warring elements, it 
has watched the growth and decay of empires, the rise 
and fall of nations, the most wonderful changes in 
every quarter of the globe. But it has seen no spec- 
tacle more extraordinary than that which we com- 
memorate to-day, and in all the sterile pages of its 
thousand years of history it can point to no such 
achievements as fill up the first century of this younger 
nation. 

The tendency of the American colonies toward 
union had frequently shown itself before 1774. There 
was, of course, little sympathy at the outset between 
the Puritan of New England and the Virginian cava- 
lier, the Roman Catholic of Maryland and the Penn- 
sylvania Quaker. Each had, in times past, suffered at 
the other's hands, and the smart of their injuries was 
not soon forgotten. But time, that great healer, came 
after a while to efface its sharpness, and when the 
third generation had grown up little bitterness re- 



2 2 ORATION OF HENRY ARM ITT BROWN 

mained. For, after all, there is no sympathy like that 
which is begotten by common suffering. The trials 
of these men had been much the same. The spirit of 
persecution had driven forth all alike. Their ideas of 
liberty — narrow as they were at first — did not mate- 
rially differ, and their devotion to them had led all 
alike across the seas. They spoke the same language, 
inherited the same traditions, revered the same exam- 
ples, worshipped the same God. Nor had the ob- 
stacles which they had overcome been different. Heat 
and cold, fire and sword, hunger and thirst — they had 
all experienced these. The Frenchman on the North 
and the Indian along- the Western frontier had con- 
stantly threatened them with a common danger, and 
when the news of Braddock's defeat came down the 
slopes of the Alleghany Mountains it sent a thrill 
through hearts in Georgia and New Hampshire, as 
well as in Pennsylvania and Maryland. As early as 
the year 1754 the Indian troubles and the necessity 
for united action had led to the assembling of a con- 
vention or council at Albany, at which seven colonies 
were represented. The scheme for a perpetual union 
which the genius of Franklin had then devised was 
not successful, it is true, but the meeting under such 
circumstances awakened a strong desire for union 
among his countrymen; and when, in 1765, the times 
had changed, and the mother-country, victorious over 
France, turned her hand against her children, the 
sense of danger found expression in the convention 
which the Stamp Act brought together in New York. 
I pass without comment over the years which inter- 



CARPENTERS' HALL. 23 

vened between 1765 and 1774. The Stamp Act had 
been repealed, but a succession of severer measures 
had brought things from bad to worse. Great Britain 
was in the zenith of her power. The colonies were 
thirteen in number, and contained about two millions 
and a half of inhabitants.* Let us, then, in the course 
of the hour which we are to spend together here, 
endeavor to 0-0 back in imagination to the summer of 
1774. Here in Philadelphia there have been feverish 
days. The news of the determination of the ministry 
to shut up the port of Boston, followed as it is soon 
after by the attempt to do away with the ancient 
charter of Massachusetts and to remove to Great 
Britain the trial of offences committed in America, 
has aroused the patriotic resistance of the whole 
country. In every town and hamlet, from New Hamp- 
shire to the southern boundary of Georgia, bold pro- 
tests are recorded by the people, . and Boston is 
declared to be suffering - in the common cause. The 
first day of June, when the Port Bill goes into effect, 
is everywhere kept as a day of fasting and humilia- 
tion. Flags are lowered to half-mast, shops shut up 
and the places of worship crowded with thoughtful 
men. Nine-tenths of the houses in Philadelphia are 
closed in mourning, and the famous bells of Christ 
Church are muffled in distress. Nor are the fellow- 
countrymen of the Bostonians content with this man- 
ifestation of their sympathy. From every part of the 
colonies come contributions for the suffering poor. 
Money, provisions and articles of clothing pour in 

* Bancroft, Hist. U. S., vol. vii., page 128. 



24 O RATI UN OF HENRY ARM ITT BROWN. 

from every Side. There is but one sentiment in the 
great majority of the people — a determination to sup- 
port the men of Massachusetts to the end. They 
were not unconscious of the dangers of such a course. 
The disparity between the power of Great Britain and 
their own was far more apparent to them than it can 
ever be to us. They saw her the first power of the 
age — fresh from the memorable wars in which she 
had destroyed the naval and colonial power of France. 
The air still rang with the cheers with which they had 
greeted her successive triumphs, each of which they 
had come to look upon as their own. Her armies had 
been victorious in every land, her fleets triumphant on 
the most distant seas, and whatever of spirit, of cour- 
age and of endurance they might believe themselves 
to possess they had inherited from her. " We have 
not fit men for the times," wrote one of the leading 
actors in the drama that was about to begin; "we 
are deficient in genius, in education, in travel, in for- 
tune, in everything. I feel unutterable anxiety." * But 
there is no thought of yielding in anybody's breast. 
" God grant us wisdom and fortitude," writes John 
Adams, in June, and he speaks the universal senti- 
ment of his countrymen. " Should the opposition be 
suppressed, should this country submit, what infamy 
and ruin ! God forbid ! Death in any form is less 
terrible." f It was out of this consciousness of weak- 
ness that the strength of the Revolution grew. Had 
Massachusetts stood alone, had a feeling of strength 
seduced the colonies to remain divided, the end would 

* Works of John Adams, vol. ii., p. 338. f Idem. 



CARPENTERS' HALL. 25 

have been far different. Singly, they would have 
offered but a slight resistance — together, they were 
invincible. And the blind policy of the English king 
and ministry steadily fostered this sentiment of union. 
The closing of the port of Boston was intended by its 
authors to punish Massachusetts alone, but the mer- 
chant of Charleston or New York saw in the act the 
attempt to exercise a power which might one day be 
directed against him, and the Pennsylvania!! could 
have little feeling of security in submitting his valued 
institutions to the mercy of those who sought, by an 
act of Parliament, to sweep away the ancient charter 
of Massachusetts. The cause of one colony became 
the cause of all. The rights of Massachusetts were 
the rights of America. 

All through the spring and summer there has been 
concert and consultation. Couriers are riding here 
and there with messages from the Committees of Cor- 
respondence which, thanks to Samuel Adams, have 
been established in every village. A constant inter- 
change of counsels has soon begotten confidence ; 
with better understanding has come a sense of 
strength. Each colony seems ready for her share of 
the responsibility, and no town, however feeble, feels 
alone. Boston is strengthened in her glorious mar- 
tyrdom as her sister towns reach forth to clasp her 
shackled hands, and the cry goes forth, at last, for the 
assembling of a Continental Congress. " Permit me 
to suggest a general Congress of deputies from the 
several Houses of Assembly on the Continent," * John 

* Bancroft's Hisl. U. S., vol. vi., p. 508. 



26 ORATION OF HENRY ARMITT BROWN. 

Hancock says on the 4th of March, "as the most 
effectual method of establishing a union for the 
security of our rights and liberties." "A Congress, 
and then an Assembly of States," * cries Samuel 
Adams, in April, 1773. Here is a call for a general 
Congress in the newspaper which I hold in my hand 
— a journal published in Philadelphia on the nth of 
October, 1773. "A Congress," suggest the Sons of 
Liberty of New York in the spring of the following 
year, and in all parts of the country the cry meets 
with a response. The first official call comes from 
Virginia, dated May 28, 1774. On the 20th of that 
month the Whigs of Philadelphia have met, to the 
number of three hundred, in the long room of the City 
Tavern on Second Street, and, after consultation, 
unanimously resolved that the Governor be asked at 
once to call a meeting of the Assembly of this Prov- 
ince, and a Committee of Correspondence be ap- 
pointed to write to the men of Boston " that we con- 
sider them as suffering in the general cause ;" " that 
we truly feel for their unhappy situation ;" " that we 
recommend to them firmness, prudence and moder- 
ation ;" and that "we shall continue to evince our firm 
adherence to the cause of American liberty." f 

* Bancroft's Hist. U. S., vol. vi., p. 456. 

f Pennsylvania Packet, for June 6, 1 774. The reply to the Bostonians was 
written by the Rev. Dr. Win. Smith, first Provost of the University of Pennsyl- 
vania (who did service afterward as one of the Provincial Convention of 1774). 
An interesting account of this will be found on pages forty-one and forty-two of 
the valuable Memoir of the Rev. William Smith, D. D. ; for a copy of which I 
am indebted to its author, Charles J. Stille, Esq., LL.D., the present Provost of 
the University. 



CARPENTERS' HALL. 2f 

The messenger who bears this letter finds the coun- 
try all alive. The Boston Committee sends southward 
a calm statement of the situation, and asks for general 
counsel and support. Rumor follows rumor as the 
days go by, and presently a courier comes riding down 
the dusty king's highway from the North, and never 
draws rein till he reaches the Merchants' Coffee House, 
where the patriots are assembled in committee. The 
intelligence he brings is stirring, for men come for- 
ward with flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes. And 
soon it is on every lip. Behold, great news ! Bold 
Sam Adams has locked the Assembly door on the 
king's officers at Salem, and the General Court has 
named Philadelphia and the first of September as the 
place and time for the assembling of a Congress of 
Deputies from all the colonies. Twelve hundred miles 
of coast is soon aflame. Nor is the enthusiasm con- 
fined to youth alone. Hopkins and Hawley in New 
England, and Gadsden in Carolina, are as full of fire 
as their younger brethren, and far away, in a corner 
of the British capital, a stout old gentleman in a suit 
of gray cloth, with spectacles on his nose and a bright 
twinkle in his eye, is steadily preparing for the strug- 
gle which he — wise, far-sighted, great-souled Franklin 
— has long foreseen and hoped for. One by one the 
colonies choose delegates. Connecticut first, Massa- 
chusetts next, Maryland the third, New Hampshire on 
the 2 i st of July, Pennsylvania on the 22d, and so on 
until all but Georgia have elected representatives. 
Yet still king and Parliament are deaf and blind, 
royal governors are writing: "Massachusetts stands 



28 ORATION OF HENRY ARM ITT BROWN. 

alone ; there will be no Congress of the other colo- 
nies." Boston lies still, the shipping motionless in her 
harbor, the merchandise rotting on her wharves, and 
elsewhere, as of old, the dull routine of provincial life 
goes jogging on. The creaking stages lumber to and 
fro. Ships sail slowly up to town, or swing out into 
the stream waiting for a wind to take them out to sea. 
Men rise and go to work, eat, lie down and sleep. 
The sun looks down on hot, deserted streets, and so 
the long days of summer pass until September comes. 
With the first days of the new month there is excite- 
ment among the Philadelphia Whigs. All through the 
week the delegates to Congress have been arriving. 
Yesterday, Christopher Gadsden and Thomas Lynch, 
Esquires, landed at the wharf, having come by sea 
from Charleston, South Carolina; to-day, Colonel Na- 
thaniel Folsom and Major John Sullivan, the delegates 
from New Hampshire, ride into town.* The friends 
of liberty are busy. The great coach-and-fourf of John 
Dickinson rolls rapidly through the streets as he has- 
tens to greet the Virginian gentlemen who have just 
arrived, and in the northern suburbs a company of 
horsemen has galloped out the old King's Road to 
welcome the delegates from Massachusetts, who have 
arrived at Frankford, with Sam Adams at tkeir head. | 

* Pennsylvania Packet, for Aug. 29, 1 774- 

f " Mr. Dickinson, the farmer of Pennsylvania, came in his coach, with four 
heautiful horses, to Mr. Ward's lodgings to see us." — y. Adams' Works, vol. 
ii., p. 360. 

J [Jem, p. 357, " After dinner we stopped at Frankford, about live miles out 
of town. A number of carriages and gentlemen came out of Philadelphia to 
meet us. . . . We were introduced to all these gentlemen, and cordially wel- 



CARPENTERS 1 MALL, -'9 

With Saturday night they are all here, save those from 
North Carolina, who were not chosen till the 25th, but 
are on their way. 

Sunday comes — the last Sabbath of the old provin- 
cial days. The bells of Christ Church chime sweetly 
in the morning air, and her aisles are crowded beyond 
their wont; but the solemn service glides along, as in 
other days, with its prayer for king and queen, so soon 
to be read for the last time within those walls ; and 
the thought, perhaps, never breaks the stillness of the 
Quakers' meeting-house that a thing has come to pass 
that will make their quiet town immortal. Then the 
long afternoon fades away and the sun sinks down 
yonder over Valley Forge. 

The fifth day of September dawns at last. At ten 
in the morning the delegates assemble at the Mer- 
chants' Coffee House.* From that point they march 
on foot along the street until they reach the threshold 
of this hall. And what a memorable procession ! The 
young men cluster around them as they pass, for these 
are their chosen leaders in the struggle that has come. 
The women peep at them, wonderingly, from the 

corned to Philadelphia. We then rode into the town, and, dirty, dusty and 
fatigued as we were, we coidd not resist the importunity to go lo the tavern, ilit 
most genteel one in America." The important consequences of tins meeting it 
Frankford are set forth in a letter of Adams to T. Pickering in 1S22. printed in 
a note on page 512 of the same volume. Vide, also, vol. i., p. 151. 

*Then called the City Tavern. It stood on the west side of Second street, 
above Walnut, at the corner of Gold street (or Bank alley), and had l»een re- 
cently opened by Daniel Smith. It was already the rendezvous of tin- Whigs, 
as the London Coffee House (still standing), at Front and Market, had long 
been of the Tory party. — Vide Westcott'S Hist, of Phila., Philadelphia 
Library copy, vol. ii., p. 364. 



30 ORATION OF HENRY ARMITT BROUN. 

bowed windows of their low-roofed houses, little 
dreaming-, perhaps, that these are the fathers of a 
republic for the sake of which their hearts are soon 
to be wrung and their homes made desolate. Here a 
royalist — "Tory" he is soon to be called — turns out 
for them to pass, scarcely attempting to hide the sneer 
that trembles on his lips, or some stern-browed Friend, 
a man of peace, his broad-brimmed hat set firmly on 
his head, goes by, with measured footsteps, on the 
other side. Yonder urchin, playing by the roadside, 
turns his head suddenly to stare at this stately com- 
pany. Does he dream of the wonders he shall live 
to see ? Men whose names his children shall revere 
through all descending generations have brushed by 
him while he played, and yet he knows them not. 

And so along the street, and down the narrow court, 
and up the broad steps the Congress takes its way. 
The place of meeting has been well chosen. Some 
of the Pennsylvanians would have preferred the State- 
House, but that is the seat of Government, and the 
Assembly, which has adjourned, has made no pro- 
vision for the meeting of Congress there. Here, too, 
have been held the town-meetings at which the people 
have protested against the acts of Parliament, and the 
Carpenters' Company, which owns the hall, is made 
up of the friends of liberty. It has offered its hall to 
the delegates, and the place seems fit. It is " a spa- 
cious hall," says one of them,* and above there is " a 
chamber, with an excellent library," "a convenient 

" John Adams, from whose Journal or Correspondence I have taken the per- 
sonal descriptions in nearly every instance. 



CARPKNTF.RS' If ALL. 3 I 

chamber opposite to this, and a long- entry where 
gentlemen may walk." The question is put whether 
the gentlemen are satisfied, and passed in the affirma- 
tive ; the members are soon seated and the doors art- 
shut. The silence is first broken by Mr. Lynch of 
South Carolina. "There is a gentleman present," ht j 
says, " who has presided with great dignity over a very 
respectable society, and greatly to the advantage of 
America ;" and he " moves that the Honorable Peyton 
Randolph, Esquire, one of the delegates from Virginia, 
be appointed chairman." He doubts not it will be 
unanimous. It is so, and yonder,* "large well-looking 
man," carefully dressed, with well-powdered wig and 
scarlet coat, rises and takes the chair. The com- 
missions of the delegates are then produced and read, 
after which Mr. Lynch nominates as secretary Mr. 
Charles Thomson, " a gentleman," he says, " of family, 
fortune and character." And thereupon, with that 
singular wisdom which our early statesmen showed in 
their selection of men for all posts of responsibility, 
the Congress calls into his country's service that 
admirable man, " the Sam Adams of Philadelphia and 
the life of the cause of liberty." f While the pre- 

* During the delivery of this address an original portrait of Mr. Randolph 
hung above the chair in which he sat during the sessions of Congress. 

t The Hon. Eli K. Price has kindly sent me the following interesting account 
of the manner in which this was made known to Mr. Thomson. The allusion 
in the address " reminded me," writes a lady of Mr. Price's family, Miss Rebecca 
Embree, " of the great simplicity of that appointment, as I have heard it related 
by Deborah Logan, wife of Dr. George Logan of Stenton, viz. : ' Charles Thom- 
son had accompanied his wife on a bridal visit to Deborah Logan's mother, 
Mary Parker Norris, who resided on Chestnut street above Fourth, where the 
Custom-House now stands. Whilst there a messenger arrived inquiring for Mr. 



32 ORATION OF tfFXRY ARM/TT BROW \ 

liminaries are being despatched, let us take a look at 
this company, for it is the most extraordinary assem- 
blage America has ever seen. There are fifty dele- 
gates present, the representatives of eleven colonies. 
Georgia has had no election, the North Carolinians 
have not yet arrived, and John Dickinson, that 
" shadow, slender as a reed, and pale as ashes," that 
Pennsylvania farmer who has sown the seeds of 
empire, is not a member yet.* Directly in front, in a 
seat of prominence, sits Richard Henry Lee. His 
brilliant eye and Roman profile would make him a 
marked man in any company. One hand has been 
injured, and is wrapped, as you see, in a covering of 
black silk, but when he speaks his movements are so 
graceful and his voice so sweet that you forget the 
defect of gesture, for he is an orator — the greatest in 
America, perhaps, save only one. That tall man with 
the swarthy face and black, un powdered hair, is 

Thomson, and informed him that lie was wanted at Carpenters' Hall. Being 
introduced to the company there assembled, he was requested to act as their 
secretary, which he accordingly did. 1 " 

* Justice is not done now-a-days to the patriotic labors of John Dickinson. 
The effect of his Farmer s Letters in preparing the minds of his countrymen For 
resistance to Great Britain can hardly be exaggerated, and to him they owed 
the phrase "No taxation without representation." When the Congress of 1774 
assembled no man in the colonies was more prominent than the Farmer, ami his 
influence upon its deliberations was very great. < >n page 13 of the valuable 
Early History of the Falls of Schuylkill, etc. etc., by Charles V. Hagner, Esq., 
will be found an interesting account, taken partly from the Pennsylvania Gazette 
of May 12, 1768, of the presentation of a laudatory address to Mr. Dickinson by 
the Society of Fort St. Davids. ( Hher similar addresses were sent to him from 
various parts of the colonies — one especially worthy of note being signed by Dr. 
Benjamin Church, John Hancock, Samuel Adams, Dr. Joseph Warren, and John 
Rowe, and enclosing resolutions adopted at a town-meeting held in Boston. 



CARPENTERS* HALL. 33 

William Livingston of 'New Jersey — "no public 
speaker, but sensible and learned." Beside him, with 
his slender form bent forward and his face lit with 
enthusiasm, sits his son-in-law, John Jay, soon to be 
famous. He is the youngest of the delegates, and 
yonder sits the oldest of them all. His form is bent, 
his thin locks fringing a forehead bowed with age and 
honorable service, and his hands shake tremulously as 
he folds them in his lap. It is Stephen Hopkins, once 
Chief-Justice of Rhode Island. Close by him is his 
colleague, Samuel Ward, and Sherman of Connecti- 
cut — that strong man whose name is to be made 
honorable by more than one generation. Johnson of 
Maryland is here, " that clear, cool head," and Paca, 
his colleague, " a wise deliberator." Bland of Virginia 
is that learned-looking, "bookish man" beside "zeal- 
ous, hot-headed" Edward Rutledge. The Pennsyl- 
vanians are grouped together at one side — Morton, 
Humphreys, Mifflin, Rhoads, Biddle, Ross, and Gallo- 
way, the Speaker of the Assembly. Bending forward 
to whisper in the latter's ear is Duane of New York — 
that sly-looking man, a little "squint-eyed" (John 
Adams has already written of him), "very sensible 
and very artful." That large-featured man, with the 
broad, open countenance, is William Hooper; that 
other, with the Roman nose, McKean of Delaware. 
Rodney, the latter's colleague, sits beside him, "the 
oddest-looking man in the world — tall, thin, pale, his 
face no bigger than a large apple, yet beaming with 
sense, and wit, and humor." Yonder is Christopher 
Gadsden, who lias been preaching independence to 



34 ORATION OF HENRY ARM ITT RRoll'N 

South Carolina these ten years past. He it is who, 
roused by the report that the regulars have com- 
menced to bombard Boston, proposes to march north- 
ward and defeat Gage at once, before his reinforce- 
ments can arrive ; and when some one timidly says 
that in the event of war the British will destroy the 
sea-port towns, turns on the speaker, with this grand 
reply: "Our towns are built of brick and wood; if 
they are burned down we can rebuild them ; but lib- 
erty once lost is gone for ever." In all this famous 
company perhaps the men most noticed are the Massa- 
chusetts members. That colony has thus far taken 
the lead in the struggle with the mother-country. A 
British army is encamped upon her soil ; the gates of 
her chief town are shut ; against her people the full 
force of the resentment of king and Parliament is 
spent. Her sufferings called this Congress into being, 
and now lend sad prominence to her ambassadors. 
And of them surely Samuel Adams is the chief. 
What must be his emotions as he sits here to-day — 
he who " eats little, drinks little, sleeps little, and 
thinks much"* — that strong man whose undaunted 
spirit has led his countrymen up to the possibilities of 
this day? It is his plan of correspondence, adopted, 
after a hard struggle, in November, 1772, that first 
made feasible a union in the common defence. He 
called for union as early as April, 1773. For that he 
had labored without ceasing and without end, now 
arousing the drooping spirits of less sanguine men, 

* Historical and Political Reflections on t/ie^Rise and Progress of the Amer- 
ican Rebellion, by Joseph Galloway, London, 1780. 



CARPENTERS' HAIJ.. 35 

now repressing the enthusiasm of rash hearts, which 
threatened to bring on a crisis before the time was 
ripe, and all the while thundering against tyranny 
through the columns of the Boston Gazette. As he 
was ten years ago he is to-day, the master-spirit of 
the time — as cool, as watchful, as steadfast, now that 
the hour of his triumph is at hand, as when, in darker 
days, he took up the burden fames Otis could no 
longer bear. Beside him sits his younger kinsman, 
John Adams, a man after his own heart — bold, fertile, 
resolute, an eloquent speaker and a leader of men. 
But whose is yonder tall and manly form ? It is that 
of a man of forty years of age, in the prime of vigor- 
ous manhood. He has not spoken, for he is no orator, 
but there is a look of command in his broad face and 
firm-set mouth that marks him among men, and seems 
to justify the deference with which his colleagues turn 
to speak with him. He has taken a back seat, as be- 
comes one of his great modesty — for he is great even 
in that — but he is still the foremost man in all this 
company. This is he who has just made in the Vir- 
ginia Convention that speech which Lynch of Carolina 
says is the most eloquent speech that ever was made : 
" I will raise a thousand men, subsist them at my own 
expense, and march with them at their head for the 
relief of Boston." These were his words — and his 
name is Washington. Such was the Continental 
Congress assembled in Philadelphia. 

Its members were met by a serious difficulty at the 
very outset. The question at once arose, How should 
their votes be cast — by colonies, by interest, or by the 



36 ORATION OF HENRY ARMITT BROWN. 

poll? Some wore for a vote by colonics; but the 
larger ones at once raised the important objection that 
it would be unjust to allow to a little colony the same 
weight as a large one. "A small colony," was the 
reply of Major Sullivan of New Hampshire, " has its all 
at stake, as well as a large one." Virginia, responded 
the delegates from the Old Dominion, will never con- 
sent to waive her full representation ; and one of them 
went so far as to intimate that if she were denied an 
influence in proportion to her size and numbers, she 
would never again be represented in such an assem- 
bly. On the other hand, it was confessed to be im- 
possible to determine the relative weight which should 
be assigned to each colony. There were no tables ot 
population, of products, or of trade, nor had there been 
a common system in the choice of delegates. Each 
province had sent as many as it liked — Massachusetts 
four, South Carolina five, Virginia seven, Pennsylvania 
eight. In one case they had been chosen by a con- 
vention of the people, in another by a general elec- 
tion, in most by the Assembly of the province. There 
was no rule by which the members could be guided. 
Nor was this the only point of difference among the 
delegates. On no one thing did they seem at first 
sight to agree. Some were for resting their rights 
on a historical basis — others upon the law of nature. 
These acknowledged the power of Great Britain to 
regulate trade — those denied her right to legislate for 
America at all. One would have omitted the Quebec 
bill from the list of grievances — another held it to be 
of them all the very worst. Some were for paying 



CARPENTERS' HALL. S7 

art indemnity for the destruction of the tea — others 
cried out that this were to yield the point at once. 
One was defiant, a second conciliatory ; Gadsden de- 
sired independence ; Washington believed that it was 
wished for bv no thinking' man. . 

It was with a full sense of the diversity of these 
views, of the importance of a speedy decision, and of 
the danger of dissension, that the Congress reassem- 
bled the next morning. 

When the doors had been closed and the pre- 
liminaries gone through with, it is related that an 
oppressive silence prevailed for a long time before any 
man spoke. No one seemed willing to take the lead. 
It was a season of great doubt and greater danger. 
Now, for the first time perhaps, when the excitement 
of the assembling had passed away, and reflection had 
come to calm men's minds, the members realized com- 
pletely the importance of their acts. Their country- 
men watched and waited everywhere. In the most 
distant hamlet beyond the mountains, in the lonely 
cabin by the sea, eyes were turned to this place with 
anxious longing, and yonder, in the North, the brave 
town lay patient in her chains, resting her hopes for 
deliverance upon them. And not Boston only, nor 
Massachusetts, depended upon them. The fate of 
humanity for generations was to be affected by their 
acts. Perhaps in the stillness of this morning hour 
there came to some of them a vision of the time to 
come. Perhaps to him on whose great heart was 
destined so long to lie the weight of all America it 
was permitted to look beyond the present hour, like 



38 ORATION OF HENRY ARM ITT BROWN. 

that great leader of an earlier race when he stood 
silent upon a peak in Moab and overlooked the Prom- 
ised Land. Like him, he was to be the chosen of his 
people. Like him, soldier, lawgiver, statesman. Like 
him, he was destined to lead his brethren through the 
wilderness ; and, happier than he, was to behold the 
fulfilment of his labor. Perhaps, as he sat here in the 
solemn stillness that fell- upon this company, he may 
have seen, in imagination, the wonders of the century 
that is complete to-day. If he had spoken, might he 
not have said : I see a winter of trouble and distress, 
and then the smoke of cannon in the North. I see 
long years of suffering to be borne, our cities sacked, 
our fields laid waste, our hearths made desolate ; men 
trudging heavily through blood-stained snow, and 
wailing women refusing to be comforted. I see a time 
of danger and defeat, and then a day of victory. I 
see this people, virtuous and free, founding a govern- 
ment on the rights of man. I see that govern- 
ment grown strong, that people prosperous, pushing 
its way across a continent. I see these villages 
become wealthy cities, these colonies great States, the 
Union we are about to found a power among the 
nations, and I know that future generations shall rise 
up and call us blessed. 

Such might have been his thoughts as these founders 
of an empire sat for a while silent, face to face. It 
was the stillness of the last hour of night before the 
morning breaks ; it was the quiet which precedes the 
storm. Suddenly, in some part of this hall a man rose 
up. His form was tall and angular, and his short wig 



CARPENTERS' HALL. 39 

and coat of black gave him the appearance of a 
clergyman. His complexion was swarthy, his nose 
long and straight, his mouth large, but with a firm 
expression on the thin lips, and his forehead exception- 
ally high. The most remarkable feature of his face 
was a pair of deep-set eyes, of piercing brilliancy, 
changing so constantly with the emotions which they 
expressed that none could tell the color of them. He 
began to speak in a hesitating manner, faltering 
through the opening sentences, as if fully convinced 
of the inability, which he expressed, to do justice to 
his theme. But presently, as he reviewed the wrongs 
of the colonies through the past ten years, his cheek 
glowed and his eye Mashed fire and his voice rang out 
rich and full, like a trumpet, through this hall. He 
seemed not to speak like mortal man, thought one 
who heard him ten years before in the Virginia House 
of Burgesses ; and a recent essayist in a leading- 
English Review has remarked, that, judging by effects, 
he was one of the greatest orators that ever lived.* 
There was no report made of his speech that day, but 
from the notes which John Adams kept of the debate 
we may learn what line of argument he took. He 
spoke of the attacks made upon America by the king 
and ministry of Great Britain, counselled a union 
in the general defence, and predicted that future gener- 
ations would quote the proceedings of this Congress 
with applause A step in advance of his time, as he 
had ever been, he went far beyond the spirit of the 
other delegates, who, with the exception of the 

* Essays, l>y A. Hayward, Esq., Q< C, vol. iii. 



40 ORATION OF HENRY ARM ITT BROWN. 

s 

Adamses and Gadsden, did not counsel or desire in- 
dependence. "An entire new government must be 
founded," was his cry ; " this is the first in a never- 
ending succession of Congresses," his prophecy. And 
gathering up, as it was the gift of his genius to do, 
the thought that was foremost in every mind about 
him, he spoke it in a single phrase : " British oppres- 
sion has effaced the boundaries of the several colo- 
nies ; I am not a Virginian, but an American." 

My countrymen, we cannot exaggerate the debt we 
owe this man. The strength of his intellect, the fer- 
vor of his eloquence, the earnestness of his patriotism 
and the courage of his heart placed him in the front 
rank of those early patriots, and he stands among 
them the model of a more than Roman virtue. His 
eloquence was one of the chief forces of the Amer- 
ican Revolution — as necessary to that great cause as 
the intelligence of Franklin, the will of Samuel Adams, 
the pen of Thomas Jefferson, or the sword of Wash- 
ington. In such times of a nation's trial there is al- 
ways one voice which speaks for all. It echoes the 
spirit of the age — proud or defiant, glad or mournful, 
now raised in triumph, now lifted up in lamentation. 
Greece stood on the Bema with Demosthenes ; indig- 
nant Rome thundered against Catiline with the tongue 
of Cicero. The proud eloquence of Chatham rang 
out the triumphs of the English name, and France 
stood still to hear her Mirabeau. Ireland herself 
pleaded for liberty when Henry Grattan spoke, and 
the voice of Patrick Henry was. the voice of America, 
struggling to be free! 



CARPENTERS' HALL. 4 1 

Rest in peace, pure and patriotic heart ! Thy work 
is finished and thy fame secure. Dead for three-quar- 
ters of a century, thou art still speaking to the sons 
of men. Through all descending time thy country- 
men shall repeat thy glowing words, and, as the pages 
of their greatest bard kept strong the virtue of the 
Grecian youth, so from the grave shalt thou, who 
" spoke as Homer wrote,"* inspire in the hearts of men 
to be that love of liberty which filled thine own ! 

Great as were at first the differences of interest and 
opinion among the members of the Congress of 1774, 
there were none which their patriotic spirits could not 
reconcile. It was the salvation of the Americans that 
they had chosen for their counsellors men who be- 
lieved, with Thomas Jefferson, that " the whole art of 
government consists in the art of being honest,"f and 
who were enthusiastic lovers of their country. No 
matter how strong had been their individual opinions, 
or how dear the separate interests involved, there 
seemed to these men no sacrifice too great to make 
for the common cause. As the debates progressed 
different views were reconciled and pet theories sac- 
rificed to the general judgment. Day after day they 
became more united and confidence increased. " This," 
wrote John Adams on the i 7th of September, " was 
one of the happiest days of my life. In Congress we 
had noble sentiments and manly eloquence. This 
day convinced me that America will support the Massa- 
chusetts or perish with her."| After a full and free 

* Memoir of Thomas Jefferson, vol. i., p. 3. f Idem, p. 115. 

\ Journal of John Adams, vol. ii., p. 380. 



42 ORATION OF HEXRY ARM ITT BROWX. 

discussion, in which the subject was considered in all 
its aspects, it was decided that each colony was enti- 
tled to a single vote. By this means the integrity of 
the provinces was preserved, and out of it grew the 
theory, so familiar to us, of the sovereignty ot the 
State. It was next agreed upon to rest the rights of 
the colonies on a historical basis. By this wise deter- 
mination the appearance of a revolution was avoided, 
while the fact remained the same. Nor was there a 
sudden break in the long chain of the nation's history ; 
the change was gradual, not abrupt. The common 
law oi England, under the benign influence of which 
the young colonies had grown up, remained un- 
changed, and when, in less than two years, the Dec- 
laration of Independence created a new government, 
the commonwealth quietly took the place of king. 
The revolution was then complete ; the struggle which 
followed was merely to secure it: and the American 
grew strong with the belief that it was his part to de- 
fend, not to attack — to preserve, not to destroy ; and 
that he was fighting over again on his own soil the 
battle for civil liberty which his forefathers had won in 
England more than a century before. We cannot too 
highly prize the wisdom which thus shaped the strug 
gle. Having decided these points, the Congress agreed 
upon a declaration of rights. First, then, they named 
as natural rights the enjoyment o\ life, liberty and tor- 
tune. They next claimed, as British subjects, to be 
bound by no law to which they had not consented by 
their chosen representatives (excepting such as might 
be mutually agreed upon as necessary tor the regula- 



CARPENTERS' HALL. 43 

tion of trade). They denied to Parliament all power 
of taxation, and vested the right of legislation in their 
own Assemblies. The common law of England they 
declared to be their birthright, including the rights of 
a trial by a jury of the vicinage, of public meetings 
and petition. They protested against the maintenance 
in the colonies of standing armies without their hill 
consent, and against all legislation by councils depend- 
ent on the Crown. Having thus proclaimed their 
rights, they calmly enumerated the various acts which 
had been passed in derogation of them. These were 
eleven in number, passed in as many years — the Sugar 
Act, the Stamp Act, the Tea Act, those; which provided 
for the quartering of the troops, for the supersedure 
of the New York Legislature, for the trial in Great 
Britain of offences committed in America, for the reg- 
ulation of the crovernment of Massachusetts, for the 
shutting of the port of Boston, and the last straw, 
known as the Quebec Bill. 

Their next care was to suggest the remedy. On 
the 1 8th of October they adopted the articles of 
American Association, the signing of which (on the 
20th) should be regarded as the commencement of 
the American Union. By its provisions, to which they 
individually and as a body solemnly agreed, they 
pledged the colonies to an entire commercial non- 
intercourse with Great Britain, Ireland, the West 
Indies, and such North American provinces as did not 
join the Association, until the acts of which America 
complained were all repealed. In strong language 
they denounced the slave-trade, and agreed to hold 



44 ORATION OF HENRY ARM ITT BROWN. 

non-intercourse with all who engaged therein. They 
urged upon their fellow-countrymen the duties of 
economy, frugality and the development of their own 
resources ; directed the appointment of committees in 
every town and village to detect and punish all vio- 
lators of the Association, and inform each other from 
time to time of the condition of affairs ; and bound 
themselves, finally, to carry out the provisions of the 
Association by the sacred ties of " virtue, honor and 
love of country." 

Having thus declared their rights, and their fixed 
determination to defend them, they sought to concil- 
iate their English brethren. In one of the most re- 
markable state papers ever written they called upon 
the people of Great Britain in a firm but affectionate 
tone to consider the cause for which America was con- 
tending as one in which the inhabitants of the whole 
empire were concerned, adroitly reminding them that 
the power which threatened the liberties of its Amer- 
ican might more easily destroy those of its English 
subjects. They rehearsed the history of their wrongs, 
and "demanded nothing but to be restored to the con 
dition in which they were in I 763." Appealing at last 
to the justice of the British nation for a Parliament 
which should overthrow the " power of a wicked and 
corrupt ministry," they used these bold and noble 
words: "Permit us to be as free as yourselves, and 
we shall ever esteem a union with you to be our 
greatest glory and our greatest happiness ; we shall 
ever be ready to contribute alljn our power to the 
welfare of the empire; we shall consider your ene- 



CARPENTERS' HALL. 45 

mies as our enemies, your interests as our own. lint 
if you are determined that your ministers shall sport 
wantonly with the rights of mankind — if neither the 
voice of justice, the dictates of the law, the principles 
of the constitution, nor the. suggestions of humanity 
can restrain your hands from shedding blood in such 
an impious cause — we must then tell you that we will 
never submit to be hewers of wood or drawers ot 
water for any ministry or nation in the world." 

In an address to the people of Quebec they 
described the despotic tendency of the late change in 
their government effected by the Quebec Bill, which 
threatened to deprive them of the blessings to which 
they were entitled on becoming English subjects, 
naming particularly the rights of representation, of 
trial by jury, of liberty of person and habeas corpus, 
of the tenure of land by easy rents instead of oppress- 
ive services, and especially that right so essential " to 
the advancement of truth, science, art and morality," 
" to the diffusion of liberal sentiments " and " the pro- 
motion of union" — "the freedom of the press." 
" These are the rights," said they, " without which a 
people cannot be free and happy," and " which we are, 
with one mind, resolved never to resign but with our 
lives." In conclusion, they urged the Canadians to 
unite with their fellow-colonists below the St. Lawrence 
in the measures recommended for the common good. 
They also prepared letters to the people of St. John's, 
Nova Scotia, Georgia, and East and West Florida, 
who were not represented in this Congress, asking 
for their co-operation and support. 



46 ORATION OF HE.NRY A R MITT BROWN. 

Nor was anything omitted by these men which 
could soften the hearts of their oppressors. Declining 
to petition Parliament, they had addressed themselves \ 
to the people, recognizing in them for the first time 
the sovereign power. They now decided to petition 
the kino-. In words both humble and respectful, they 
renewed their allegiance to his crown, detailed the 
injuries inflicted on them by his ministers, and be- 
sought his interference in their behalf. "We ask," 
they said, "but for peace, liberty and safety. We 
wish not a diminution of the prerogative, nor do we 
solicit the grant of any new right in our favor. Your 
royal authority over us and our connection with Great 
Britain we shall always- carefully and zealously en- 
deavor to support and maintain." Solemnly profess- 
ing that their "counsels were influenced by no other 
motive than a dread of impending destruction," they 
earnestly besought their " Most Gracious Sovereign " 
" in the name of his faithful people in America," " for 
the honor of Almighty God," " for his own glory," 
"the interest of his family," and the good and welfare 
of his kingdom, to suffer not the most sacred " ties to 
be further violated" in the vain hope "of effects" 
which, even if secured, could " never compensate for 
the calamities through which they must be gained." 

There remained now for the Congress but one 
thing- to do — to render to its countrymen an account 
of its stewardship. In a long letter to their constit- 
uents the delegates gave a summary of their proceed- 
ings, of the difficulties they Jiad encountered, the 
opinions they had form d, 1 1 1 < ■ policy they had agreed 



CARPENTERS' HALL, 47 

to recommend, and, with a mournful prophecy of the 
trials that were at hand, urged their fellow countrymen 
"to be in all respects prepared for every contingency." 
Such were, in brief, the memorable state papers issued 
by the First Continental Congress. And, terrible as 
were the dangers which seemed to threaten them from 
without, its members were to be subjected to a trial 
from within. On the 28th of September, Joseph 
Galloway of Pennsylvania submitted to the Congress 
his famous plan* A man of talent and address, at 
one time high in the opinion and confidence of Frank 
lin, he stood at the head of the Pennsylvania dele- 
gation. The Speaker of the House of Assembly, he 
had wielded great influence in the policy of the prov- 
ince. Cold, cautious and at heart a thorough royalist, 
he determined, if possible, to nip the patriotic move- 
ment in the bud. Seconded by Duane of New York, 
he moved that the Congress should recommend the 
establishment of a British and American government, 
to consist of a President-General, appointed by the 
king, and a Grand Council, to be chosen by the seve- 
ral Legislatures; that the Council should have co- 
ordinate powers with the British House of Commons, 
either body to originate a law, but the consent of both 
to be necessary to its passage ; the members of the 
Council to be chosen for three years, the President- 
General to hold office at the pleasure of the king. 
Here, then, was an ingenious trap in the very path of 
the infant nation. Some men, and good ones, too, 

* Vide Tucker's Hist., vol. i., p. ill. Sabine's American Loyalists, vol. i., 
p. 309. John Adams' Works, vol. ii., p. 389. 



48 ORATION OF HENRY ARMITT BROWN. 

fell into it. The project was earnestly supported by 
Duane. The younger Rutledge thought it "almost 
perfect," and it met with the warm approbation of the 
conservative Jay. But wiser men prevailed. The 
Virginian and Massachusetts members opposed it 
earnestly. Samuel Adams saw in it the doom of all 
hope for liberty, and Henry condemned in every 
aspect the proposal to substitute for "a corrupt House 
of Commons " a "corruptible" legislature, and entrust 
the power of taxation to a body not elected directly 
by the people. His views were those of the majority, 
and the dangerous proposition met with a prompt 
defeat. The Suffolk county resolutions, adopted on 
the 9th of September at Milton, Massachusetts, had 
reached Philadelphia and the Congress on the 17th, 
and awakened in every breast the warmest admira- 
tion and sympathy. Resolutions were unanimously 
adopted expressing- these feelings in earnest language, 
recommending to their brethren of Suffolk county 
" a perseverance in the same firm and temperate con- 
duct," and urging upon the people of the other colo- 
nies the duty of contributing freely to the necessities 
of the Bostonians. There now came a still more 
touching appeal from Massachusetts. "The gover- 
lor," it said, " was suffering the soldiery to treat both 
town and country as declared enemies ;" the course 
of trade was stopped ; the administration of law 
obstructed; a state of anarchy prevailed. Filled with 
the spirit which in olden times had led the Athenians 
to leave their city to the foe and make their ships 
their country, this gallant people promised to obey 



CARPENTERS' HALL. 49 

should the Congress advise them to " quit their 
town ;" but if it is judged, they added, that "by main- 
taining their ground they can better serve the public 
cause, they will not shrink from hardship and dan- 
ger." * Such an appeal as this could not have waited 
long for a worthy answer from the men of the First 
American Congress. The letter was received upon 
October 6th. Two clays later the official journal con- 
tains these words : " Upon motion it was resolved 
that this Congress approve the opposition of the 
inhabitants of the Massachusetts Bay to the execution 
of the late acts of Parliament ; and if the same shall 
be attempted to be carried into execution, all America 
ought to support them in their opposition." "This," 
says the historian, "is the measure which hardened 
George the Third to listen to no terms." f In vain 
conciliation and kind words ; in vain all assurances of 
affection and of loyalty. The men of Massachusetts 
are traitors to their king, and the Congress of all the 
colonies upholds them in rebellion. " Henceforth," 
says Bancroft, " conciliation became impossible." 

Having thus asserted their rights to the enjoyment 
of life, liberty and fortune ; their resistance to taxa- 
tion without representation ; their purpose to defend 
their ancient charters from assault ; having denounced 

* The spirit of this people is reflected in a letter from Boston printed in the 
Pennsylvania Packet for Oct. io, 1774, describing a conversation which the 
writer had with a fisherman. " 1 said : • Don't you think it time to submit, pay 
for the tea, and get the harbor Opened ?' ' Submit ? No. It can never be time 
to become slaves. 1 have yet some pork and meal, and when they are gone I 
will eat clams; and after we have dug iip all the clam-banks, if the Congress 
will not lei us fight, I will retreat to the woods: I am always sure of acorns !' " 

■J- Bancroft's ffist.. vol. vii., p. 115. 

4 



50 ORATION OF IIEXR) A R MITT BROU'X. 

the slave trade in language which startled the world, 
and recognized, for the first time in history, the People 
as the source of Authority; having laid the firm foun- 
dations of a Union based upon Freedom and Equality, 
— the First Congress passed out of existence on the 
26th of October, after a session of two and fifty days. 
Half a hundred men, born in a new country, bred 
amid trials and privations, chosen from every rank of 
life, untried in diplomacy, unskilled in letters, untrained 
in statecraft, called suddenly together in a troubled 
time to advise a hitherto divided people, they had 
shown a tact, a judgment, a self-command and a sin- 
cere love of country hardly to be found in the proud- 
est annals of antiquity. And their countrymen were 
worthy of them. If the manner in which they had 
fulfilled their duties had been extraordinary, the spirit 
with which their counsels were received was still more 
remarkable. In every part of the country the recom- 
mendations of the Congress were obeyed as binding 
law. No despotic power in any period of history ex- 
ercised over the minds and hearts of men a more 
complete control. The Articles of Association were 
signed by tens of thousands, the spirit of Union grew 
strong in every breast, and the Americans steadily 
prepared to meet the worst. The stirring influence 
of this example penetrated to the most distant lands. 
" The Congress," wrote Dr. Franklin from London in 
the following winter, " is in high favor here among the 
friends of liberty." * " For a long time," cried the elo- 

* Letter to Charles Thomson, 5th Feb., 1775 ; WATSON'S Annals of Philadel- 
phia, vol. i., p. 421. 



CARPENTERS' HALL. 5 1 

quent Charles Botta, " no spectacle has been offered 
to the attention of mankind of so powerful an interest 
as this of the present American Congress."* "It is 
impossible," says the Scotch writer, Grahame, " to read 
of its transactions without the highest admiration." f 
•' There never was a body of delegates more faithful 
to the interests of their constituents," was the opinion 
of David Ramsay, the historian. \ "From the moment 
of their first debates," De Tocqueville says, "Europe 
was moved." § The judgment of John Adams de- 
clared them to be, " in point of abilities, virtues and 
fortunes, the greatest men upon the continent." || 
Charles Thomson, in the evening of his well-spent 
life, pronounced them the purest and ablest patriots 
he had ever known ; \ and, in the very face of king 
and Parliament, the illustrious Chatham spoke of them 
the well-known words : " I must avow and declare that 
in all my reading of history — and it has been my fa- 
vorite study ; I have read Thucydides and admired the 
master states of the world — that for solidity of reason- 
ing, force of sagacity and wisdom of conclusion, under 
such a complication of circumstances, no nation or 
body of men can stand in preference to the Gen- 
eral Congress assembled in Philadelphia."** Long 
years have passed, and there have been many changes 

* Otis's Botta, vol. i., p. 128. 

f Hist, of the U. S., by James Grahame, L.L.D., vol. ii., p. 496. 
X Hist, of the American Revolution, by David Ramsay, M. D., vol. i.,p. 174. 
\ J. a Democratic at Amiriffue, by ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE, vol. iii., p. 182. 
|| John Adams Letters to his Wife, vol. i.. p. 21. 
T FUld-Book of the Revolution, by I!. J. LossiKR, vol. ii., p. 60 — note. 
Speech in Favoi R / Troops from Boston, Jan. 20. 1775. 



52 ORATION XRY ARM7TT BROWN. 

in the governments of men. The century which has 
elapsed has been crowded with great events, but the 

calm judgment of posterity has confirmed that opin- 
ion, and mankind has not - i imire the spec- 
tacle which was once enacted here. " But that you 
may be more earnest in the defence of your country," 
cried the great Roman orator, speaking in a 
with the tongue of Scipio, "know from me that a cer 
tain place in heaven is assigned to all who have pre- 
served, or assisted, or improved their country, v 
they are to enjoy an endless duration of happiness. 
For there is nothing which takes place on earth more 
acceptable to the Supreme Deity, who governs all this 
world, than those councils and assemblies of men, 
bound together by law, which are termed states : the 
founders and preservers of these come from heaven, 
and thither do they return."* The founders and pre- 
servers of this Union have vanished from the earth, 
those true lovers of their country have long since 
been consigned into her keeping, but their memory 
clings around this place, and hath hallowed it for ever- 
more. Here shall men come as to a sanctuary. Here 
shall they gather with each returning anniversary, and 
as the story of these lives falls from the lips of him 
who shall then stand where I stand to-day, their souls 
shall be stirred within them and their hearts be lifted 
up, and none shall despair of the Republic while she 
can find among her children the courage, the wisdom, 
the eloquence, the self-sacrifice, the lofty patriotism 

* Cicero. De K 



CARPENTERS' HALL. 53 

and the spotless honor of those who assembled in this 
hall an hundred years ago. 

The conditions of life are always changing, and the 
experience of the fathers is rarely the experience of 
the sons. The temptations which are trying us are 
not the temptations which beset their footsteps, nor 
the dangers which threaten our pathway the dangers 
which surrounded them. These men were few in 
number, we are many. They were poor, but we are 
rich. They were weak, but we are strong. What is 
it, countrymen, that we need to-day? Wealth? 
Behold it in your hands. Power? God hath given it 
you. Liberty? It is your birthright. Peace? It 
dwells amongst you. You have a government founded 
in the heart of men, built by the people for the com- 
mon good. Yoii have a land flowing with milk and 
honey; your homes are happy, your workshops busy, 
your barns are lull. The school, the railway, the tele- 
graph, the printing-press have welded you together 
into one. Descend those mines that honeycomb the 
hills. Behold that commerce whitening every sea ! 
Stand by your gates and see that multitude pour 
through them from the corners of the earth, grafting 
the qualities of older stocks upon one stem, mingling 
the blood of many races in a common stream, and 
swelling the rich volume of our English speech with 
varied music from an hundred tongues. You have a 
long and glorious history, a past glittering with heroic 
deeds, an ancestry full of lofty and imperishable ex- 
amples. You rjave passed through danger, endured 
privation, been acquainted with sorrow, been tried by 



54 ORATION OF HENRY ARM ITT BROWN 

suffering. You have journeyed in safety through the 
wilderness and crossed in triumph the Red Sea of 
civil strife, and the foot of Him who led you hath not 
faltered nor the light of His countenance been turned 
away' It is a question for us now, not of the found- 
ing of a new government, but of the preservation of 
one already old ; not of the formation of an inde- 
pendent power, but of the purification of a nation's 
life ; not of the conquest of a foreign foe, but of the 
subjection of ourselves. The capacity of man to rule 
himself is to be proven in the days to come — not by 
the greatness of his wealth, not by his valor in the 
field, not by the extent of his dominion, not by the 
splendor of his genius. The dangers of to-day come 
from within. The worship of self, the love of power, 
the lust for gold, the weakening of faith, the decay 
of public virtue, the lack of private worth, — these are 
the perils which threaten our future ; these are the 
enemies we have to fear ; these are the traitors which 
infest the camp ; and the danger was far less when 
Catiline knocked with his army at the gates of Rome 
than when he sat smiling in the Senate-House. We 
see them daily face to face — in the walk of virtue, in 
the road to wealth, in the path to honor, on the way to 
happiness. There is no peace between them and our 
safety. Nor can we avoid them and turn back. It is 
not enough to rest upon the past. No man or nation 
can stand still. We must mount upward or go down. 
We must grow worse or better. It is the Eternal 
Law — we cannot change it. Nor are we only con- 
cerned in what we do. This government which our 



CARPENTERS' HALL. 55 

ancestors have built has been "a refuge for the 
oppressed of every race and clime," where they have 
gathered for a century. The fugitive of earlier times 
knew no such shelter among the homes of men. 
Cold, naked, bleeding, there was no safety for him 
save at the altars of imagined gods. I have seen one 
of the most famous of those ancient sanctuaries. On 
a bright day in spring-time I looked out over acres of 
ruins. Beside me the blue sea plashed upon a beach 
strewn with broken marble. That sacred floor, 
polished with the penitential knees of centuries, was 
half hidden with heaps of rubbish and giant weeds. 
The fox had his den among the stones and the fowl of 
the air her nest upon the capitals. No sound dis- 
turbed them in their solitude, save sometimes the 
tread of an adventurous stranger, or the stealthy foot- 
fall of the wild beasts and wilder men that crept down 
out of the surrounding hills under cover of the night. 
The god had vanished, his seat was desolate, the 
oracle was dumb. Far different was the temple which 
our fathers builded, and "builded better than they 
knew." The blood of martyrs was spilled on its 
foundations, and a suffering people raised its walls with 
prayer. Temple and fortress, it still stands, secure, 
and the smile of Providence gilds plinth, architrave 
and column. Greed is alone the Tarpeia that can 
betray it, and vice the only Samson that can pull it 
down. It is the Home of Liberty, as boundless as a 
continent, "as broad and general as the casing air;" a 
"temple not made with hands;" a sanctuary that shall 
not fall, but stand on for ever, founded in eternal truth ! 



56 ORATION OF HENRY ARMITT BROWN 

My countrymen, the moments are quickly passing, 
and we stand like some traveller upon a lofty crag that 
separates two boundless seas. The century that is 
closing is complete. "The past," said your great 
statesman, " is secure." It is finished, and beyond our 
reach. The hand of detraction cannot dim its glories 
nor the tears of repentance wipe away its stains. Its 
good and evil, its joy and sorrow, its truth and falsehood, 
its honor and its shame, we cannot touch. Sigh for 
them, blush for them, weep for them, if we will ; we 
cannot change them now. We might have done so 
once, but we cannot now. The old century is dying, 
and they are to be buried with him ; his history is 
finished, and they will stand upon its roll for ever. 

The century that is opening is all our own. The 
years that lie before us are a virgin page. We can 
inscribe them as we will. The future of our country 
rests upon us — the happiness of posterity depends on 
us. The fate of humanity may be in our hands. That 
pleading voice, choked with the sobs of ages, which 
has so often spoken to deaf ears, is lifted up to us. 
It asks us to be brave, benevolent, consistent, true to 
the teachings of our history — proving " divine descent 
by worth divine." It asks us to be virtuous, building 
up public virtue upon private worth ; seeking that 
righteousness which exalteth nations. It asks us to 
be patriotic — loving our country before all other 
things ; her happiness our happiness, her honor ours, 
her fame our own. It asks us in the name of Justice, 
in the name of Charity, in the name of Freedom, in 
the name of God ! 



CARPENTERS' HALL. 57 

My countrymen, this anniversary has gone by for 
ever, and my task is done. While I have spoken the 
hour has passed from us; the hand has moved upon 
the dial, and the Old Century is dead. The American 
Union hath endured an hundred years. Here, on this 
threshold of the future, the voice of Humanity shall 
not plead to us in vain. There shall be darkness in 
the days to come; danger for our courage; tempta- 
tion for our virtue ; doubt for our faith ; suffering for 
our fortitude. A thousand shall fall before us and 
tens of thousands at our right hand. The years shall 
pass beneath our feet, and century follow century in 
quick succession. The generations of men shall come 
and go ; the greatness of yesterday shall be forgotten 
to-day, and the glories of this noon shall vanish before 
to-morrow's sun ; but America shall not perish, but 
endure while the spirit of our fathers animates their 
sons ! 



Letters of regret for non-attendance were read. 

From the President. 

Long Branch, N. J., Sept. 5, 1874. 
* John M. Ogden, J Falter Allison and Richard K. 
Belts, Committee of the Carpenters Company: Your 
invitation to me to attend the hundredth anniversary 
meeting of the Continental Congress in their hall 
on this day has, from accumulation of papers and 
letters during my recent visit East, escaped my atten- 
tion until this moment. 



58 ORATION OF HENRY ARMITT BROWN. 

Please excuse apparent neglect. It would have af- 
forded me pleasure to attend your exercises on an 
occasion of so much interest. I hope they will be 
attended with all the interest such an occasion should 
naturally inspire. U. S. Grant. 



From the Secretary of State. 
Hon. Hamilton Fish, Secretary of State, writes : 
Gentlemen : I regret that official engagements com- 
pel me to decline the invitation with which you have 
honored me to attend the celebration of the 5th of 
next month, by the Carpenters' Company of Philadel- 
phia, of the one hundredth anniversary of the meet- 
ing of the Continental Congress. But, although I 
may not be personally present, you will have my sym- 
pathies and my good wishes for the success of your 
patriotic celebration. Very truly yours, 

Hamilton Fish. 
Washington, Aug. 29. 



From the Secretary of War. 
Hon. Wm. W. Belknap, Secretary of War, writes : # 
Gentlemen: I greatly regret that I am unable to 
comply with your very kind invitation for Saturday, 
September 5th. 

Yours very respectfully, 

Wm. W. Belknap, 

Secretary of War. 



CARPENTERS' HALL. ■ 59 

Governor Hartranft writes: 
Executive Chamber, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Aug. 31, 1874. 

Messrs. John M. Ogden, Walter Allison, Richard 
K. Belts, Committee, etc. — Gentlemen : I have the 
honor to acknowledge the receipt of your invitation, 
on behalf of the Carpenters' Company of Phila- 
delphia, to preside at the celebration of the One Hun- 
dredth Anniversary of the meeting of the Continental 
Congress in this Hall on Saturday, the 5th day of 
September, and beg leave to return my thanks for the 
courtesy. 

I sincerely regret that an official engagement, made 
imperative by my relations to the military service of 
the State, will prevent my participation in this cele- 
bration of the Carpenters' Company — an occasion 
that promises to be full of interest, and that will recall 
the many and thrilling associations connected with the 
old Hall, within whose venerable walls were held the 
deliberations that prepared the way for the institutions 
and liberty we to-day enjoy. 

Surrounded with stately structures of brick, stone 
and marble, in the midst of busy marts, noisy with the 
hum of trade, within sight of wharves crowded with 
shipping stands the quaint old Hall of the Carpenters' 
Company, simple and unpretentious in its architecture, 
but grand in the memories that cluster about it, and 
eloquent of the change wrought in the prosperity and 
wealth of the great city that now stretches its ample 
and magnificent proportions miles away from the 
plain little edifice in which the First Congress assem- 



60 ORATION OF HENRY A R MITT BROWN. 

bled. Amid the storm and forebodings that attended 
the first session of the Continental Congress in 1774, 
would the most sanguine of the patriots there assem- 
bled have for a moment conceived of the grandeur of 
a century's growth of the country whose foundations 
were then so wisely and securely laid ? It is proper, 
therefore, as your card of invitation states, "to make 
this Centennial a fitting remembrance of the gratitude 
the nation of to-day owes to the patriots of 1774." 

Renewing my regrets that another engagement will 
forbid my attendance, I again thank you for the 
graceful compliment paid me in requesting me to pre- 
side at your celebration, which I hope will prove alike 
pleasant and instructive. 

Very respectfully, 

Your obedient servant, 

J. F. Hartranft. 



LETTER OF REGRET. 

Benson J. Lossing, the historian, concludes his letter 
thus: 

.... I rejoice that you have renovated your build- 
ing, and that henceforth it is to be devoted to the 
uses for which it was originally erected, and so pic- 
served in the form it presented when the Congress 
assembled therein. It is a patriotic act for which you 
merit and will receive the cordial thanks of every true- 
American. 

With that I [all in possession, the Carpenters' 
Company of Phiadelphia will ever be associated with 
the most sacred events in the history of our country. 



CARPENTERS' HALL. 01 

There the incisures were begun which led to Inde- 
pendence; therefore Carpenters' Hall and Independ- 
ence Hall should hold an equal place in the affections 
and reverence of the American people, and all de- 
fenders of the rights of man. 

With the expression of my sincere thanks for your 
courtesy, 1 am, gentlemen, your friend and fellow- 
citizen, Benson J. Lossing. 

Letters of regret were read from Commodore 
George H. Preble ; Hon. John A. Dix, Governor of 
New York ; Hon. Joel Parker, Governor of New 
Jersey ; Hon. Julius Converse, Governor of Vermont ; 
John Wm. Wallace, President of the Historical So- 
ciety of Pennsylvania ; and many other distinguished 
citizens. 

The following hymn, written for the occasion, led by 
De Witt Clinton Moore, was sung standing with great 
spirit by the whole audience. 

CENTENNIAL JUBILEE. 

BY DR. A. BEECHER BARNES. 

[Sung at the close of the Oration. Tune — " Auld Lang Syne") 
The rolling hours of time have past, 

And brought a hundred years ; 
We sing their requiem at last 
Amid the world's loud cheers. 

The chorus of the nation's chime 

And tuneful anthems rise, 
Like music of the spheres sublime, 

And shake the echoing skies. 



62 ORATION OF HENRY ARM FIT BROWN. 

Here, where tolled out the despot's knell, 

And freedom had its birth, 
Where Independence Hall and Bell 

Rang out o'er all the earth — 

Welcome, thrice welcome, mighty throng, 

From every land and sea ; 
Come, join the everlasting song 

Of freedom's jubilee. 

God of our Fathers ! first and last 

Devout we worship Thee ; 
From every stain of sin and crime, 

Oh come and make us free. 

Then pure and strong our land will be, 

And glory from above 
Shall crown our first Centennial 

And city of our love. 

Come, nations, kindred, tribes ! and see 

Our freedom sealed in blood, 
And celebrate our liberty — 

Freedom to worship God ! 

A vote of thanks was then tendered to H. Am itt 
Brown, for his eloquent and thrilling oration, with a 
request that he furnish a copy for publication. Also, 
the thanks of the meeting to the Chairman, Mr. 
Welsh. The meeting then adjourned. 

The following are the resolutions to which the sig- 
natures of the members of Congress, as seen in the 
fac-simile, were attached. 

"We do, for ourselves, and' the inhabitants of the several colo- 
nies whom we represent, firmly agree and associate, under the 
sacred ties of virtue, honor and love of country, as follows : 



CARPENTERS' HALL. 63 

"First. That from and after t lie fust day of December next we 
will not import, into British- America, from Great-Britain or Ire- 
land, any goods, wares or merchandise whatsoever, or from any 
other place, any surh goods, wares or merchandise, as shall have 
been exported from Great-Britain or Ireland ; nor will we, after 
thai day, import any East-India tea from any part of the world ; 
nor any molasses, syrups, paneles, coffee or pimento from the 
British plantations or from Dominica; nor wines from Madeira 
or the Western Islands ; nor foreign indigo. 

"Second. We will neither import nor purchase any slave im- 
ported after the first day of December next; after which time we 
will wholly discontinue the slave trade, and will neither be con- 
cerned in it ourselves, nor will we hire our vessels nor sell our 
commodities or manufactures to those who are concerned in it. 

"Third. Asa non-consumption agreement, strictly adhered to, 
will be an effectual security for the observation of the non-impor- 
tation, we, as above, solemnly agree and associate that from this 
'day we will not purchase or use any tea imported on account of 
the East-India Company, or any on which a duty hath been or shall 
be paid; and from and after the first day of March next, we will 
not purchase or use any East-India tea whatever ; nor will we, nor 
shall any person for or under us, purchase or use any of those goods, 
wares or merchandise we have agreed not to import, which we 
shall know, or have cause to suspect, were imported after the first 
day of December, except such as come under the rules and direc- 
tions of the tenth article, hereafter mentioned. 

"Fourth. The earnest desire we have not to injure our fellow- 
subjects in Great-Britain, Ireland or the West-Indies induces us to 
suspend a non-exportation until the tenth day of September, 1775; 
at which time, if the said acts and parts of acts of the British 
Parliament hereinafter mentioned are not repealed, we will not 
directly or indirectly export any merchandise or commodity what- 
soever to Great-Britain, Ireland or the West-Indies, except rice to 
Europe. 

" Fifth. Such as are merchants, and use the British and Irish 
trade, will give orders, as soon as possible, to their factors, agents 



64 ORATION OF HENRY ARM 1 If P.ROWX. 

and correspondents, in Great-Britarn and Ireland, not to ship any 
goods to them on any pretence whatsoever, as they cannot he 
received in America: and if any merchant, residing in Great- 
Britain or Ireland, shall directly or indirectly ship any goods, 
wares or merchandise for America, in order to break the said non- 
importation agreement, or in any manner contravene the same, on 
such unworthy conduct being well attested, it ought to be made 
public ; and. on the same being so done, we will not. from thence- 
forth, have any commercial connection with such merchant. 

•Sixth. That such as are owners of vessels will give positive 
orders to their captains, or masters, not to receive on board their 
vessels any goods prohibited by the said non-importation agree- 
ment, on pain of immediate dismission from their service. 

"Seventh. We will use our utmost endeavors to improve the 
breed of sheep, and increase their number to the greatest extent : 
and to that end, we will kill them as seldom as may be, especially 
those of the most profitable kind, nor will we export any to the 
West-Indies or elsewhere ; and those of us, who are or may become 
overstocked with or can conveniently spare any sheep, will dispose 
of them to our neighbors, especially to the poorer sort, on moder- 
ate terms. 

"Eighth. We will, in our several stations, encourage frugality, 
economy, and industry, and promote agriculture, arts and the man- 
ufactures of this country, especially that of wool ; and will dis- 
countenance and discourage every species of extravagance and dis- 
sipation, especially all horse-racing, and all kinds of gaming, cock- 
fighting, exhibitions of shows, plays, and other expensive diver 
sions and entertainments : and on the death of any relation or 
friend, none of us, or any of our families, will go into any further 
mourning-dress than a black crape or ribbon on the arm or hat 
for gentlemen, and a black ribbon and necklace for ladies, and we 
will discontinue the giving of gloves and scarfs at funerals. 

"Ninth. Such as are vendors of goods or merchandise will not 
take advantage of the scarcity of goods, that may be occasioned by 
this association, but will sell the same at the rates we have been 
respectively accustomed to do for twelve months last past. And 



CARPENTERS' HALL. 65 

if any vendor of goods or merchandise shall sell any such goods 
on higher terms, or shall, in any manner, or by any device whatso- 
ever, violate or depart from this agreement, no person ought, nor 
will any of us, deal with any such person, or his or her factor or 
agent, at any time thereafter, for any commodity whatever. 

"Tenth. In case any merchant, trader or other person shall 
import any goods or merchandise after the first day of December 
and before the first day of February next, the same ought forth- 
with, at the election of the owner, to be either reshipped or 
delivered up to the committee of the county or town wherein they 
shall be imported, to be stored at the risk of the importer until 
the non-importation agreement shall cease, or be sold under the 
direction of the committee aforesaid ; and in the last-mentioned 
case, the owner or owners of such goods shall be reimbursed out 
of the sales the first cost and charges, the profit, if any, to be 
applied toward relieving and employing such poor inhabitants of 
the town of Boston as are immediate sufferers by the Boston Port 
Bill; and a particular account of all goods so returned, stored or 
sold to be inserted in the public papers ; and if any goods or 
merchandises shall be imported after the said first day of February, 
the same ought forthwith to be sent back again, without breaking 
any of the packages thereof. 

"Eleventh. That a committee be chosen in every county, city 
and town, by those who are qualified to vote for representatives in 
the legislature, whose business it shall be attentively to observe the 
conduct of all persons touching this association ; and when it shall 
be made to appear, to the satisfaction of a majority of any such 
committee, that any person within the limits of their appointment 
has violated this association, that such majority do forthwith cause 
the truth of the case to be published in the gazette; to the end. 
that all such foes to the rights of British-America may be publicly 
known and universally contemned as the enemies of American 
liberty; and thenceforth we respectively will break off all dealings 
with him or her. 

" Twelfth. That the committee of correspondence, in the respect- 
ive colonies, do frequently inspect the entries of their custom- 



66 ORATION OF HENRY ARM ITT BROWN. 

houses, and inform each other, from time to time, of the true state 
thereof, and of every other material circumstance that may occur 
relative to this association. 

"Thirteenth. That all manufactures of this country be sold at 
reasonable prices, so that no undue advantage be taken of a future 
scarcity of goods. 

"Fourteenth. And we do further agree and resolve that we will 
have no trade, commerce, dealings or intercourse whatsoever, with 
any colony or province, in North-America, which shall not accede 
to or which shall hereafter violate this association, but will hold 
them as unworthy of the rights of freemen, and as inimical to the 
liberties of their country. 

"And we do solemnly bind ourselves and our constituents, under 
the ties aforesaid, to adhere to this association, until such parts of 
the several acts of Parliament, passed since the close of the last 
war, as impose or continue duties on tea, wine, molasses, syrups, 
paneles, coffee, sugar, pimento, indigo, foreign paper, glass and 
painters' colors, imported into America, and extend the powers of 
the admiralty courts beyond their ancient limits, deprive the 
American subject of trial by jury, authorize the judge's certificate 
to indemnify the prosecutor from damages, that he might otherwise 
be liable to, from a trial by his peers, require oppressive security 
from a claimant of ships or goods seized, before he shall be allowed 
to defend his property, are repealed. And until that part of the 
act of the 12 G. 3, ch. 24, entitled 'An act for the better 
securing His Majesty's dock-yards, magazines, ships, ammunition 
and stores,' by which any persons charged with committing any 
of the offences therein described, in America, may be tried in any 
shire or county within the realm, is repealed ; and until the four 
acts, passed the last session of Parliament — viz., that for stopping the 
port and blocking up the harbor of Boston, that for altering the 
charter and government of the Massachusetts Bay, and that which 
is entitled 'An act for the better administration of justice, etc." 
and that 'For extending the limits of Quebec, etc' — are repealed. 
And we recommend it to the provincial conventions, and to the 
committees in the respective colonies, to establish such further regu- 



CARPENTERS ' J /ALL. 



67 



lations as they may think proper, for carrying into execution this 
association. 

" The foregoing association, being determined upon by the Con- 
gress, was ordered to be subscribed by the several members 
thereof; and thereupon we have hereunto set our respective names 
accordingly. 

"In Congress, Philadelphia, October 20, 1774. 

"Signed, Peyton Randolph, President. 



New Hampshire, < 

I Nathaniel Folsom. 



Massachusetts Bay, < 



Rhode Island, 



Connecticut, 



New York, 



New Jersey, 



r Thomas dishing, 
Samuel Adams, 
John Adams, 
Robert Treat Paine. 



j Stephen Hopkins, 
I Samuel Ward. 



Eliphalet Dyer, 
x Roger Sherman, 
[^ Silas Deane. 

Isaac Low, 
John Alsop, 
John Jay, 
James Duane, 
William Floyd, 
Henry Wisner, 
S. Boerum, 
^ Philip Livingston. 

r James Kinsey, 
William Livingston, 
Stephen Crane, 
Richard Smith, 

^ John De Hart. 



68 



OK ATI OX OF HENRY ARM ITT BROWN. 



Pennsylvania, 



New Castle, etc., 



Maryland, 



Virginia, 



North Carolina, 



South Carolina, 



Joseph Galloway, 
John Dickinson, 
Charles Humphreys, 
Thomas Mifflin, 
Edward Biddle, 
John Morton, 
George Ross. 

Caesar Rodney, 
Thomas M'Kean, 
[ George Read. 

Matthew Tilghman, 
Thomas Johnson, 

j William Paca, 

I Samuel Chase. 

Richard Henry Lee, 
George Washington, 
P. Henry, Jun., 
Richard Bland, 
Benjamin Harrison, 
^ Edmund Pendleton. 

William Hooper, 
Joseph Hewes, 
[ R. Caswell. 

Henry Middleton, 
Thomas Lynch, 
Christopher Gadsden, 
John Rutledge, 
L Edward Rutledge." 



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